Matplotlib savefig with a legend outside the plot

Reading the following article, I managed to put a legend outside plot.

• How to put the legend out of the plot

code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as pyplot

x = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
y = [xx*xx for xx in x]

fig = pyplot.figure()
ax  = fig.add_subplot(111)

box = ax.get_position()
ax.set_position([box.x0, box.y0, box.width*0.8, box.height])

ax.plot(x, y)
leg = ax.legend(['abc'], loc = 'center left', bbox_to_anchor = (1.0, 0.5))
#pyplot.show()

fig.savefig('aaa.png', bbox_inches='tight')

pyplot.show() displays the correct plot with a legend outside it. But when I save it as a file with fig.savefig(), the legend is truncated.

Some googling shows me workarounds such as adding bbox_extra_artists=[leg.legendPatch] or bbox_extra_artists=[leg] to savefig(), but neither worked.

What is the correct way to do it? Matplotlib version is 0.99.3.

Thanks.